Intro to the Getting Things Done method
Getting Things Done (GTD) is a productivity method that helps busy people capture, prioritize and act upon outstanding tasks. Its goal is to minimize mental clutter and give you certainty that what you’re working on at a given moment is the best use of your time. There are a few different ways of incorporating it into your daily workflow, as well as some software solutions that can help. While GTD is particularly helpful in a professional setting, some people find it’s also a useful method of organizing errands that need to be run, planning travel or large events and even with tackling basic chores around the house.
Who benefits most from the GTD method
While anyone can implement the GTD method, it is definitely more helpful for some people than others. If you often feel overwhelmed by many small but necessary tasks or duties you need to complete in short order, you could benefit from implementing the GTD method. If you are prone to forgetting small details or important deadlines, GTD can be a reliable backstop to help you remember. If you fulfil a bunch of roles at home and at work, like so many small- and medium-sized business owners, GTD can help you prioritize your tasks, so you aren’t juggling so many things at once. GTD is also useful for those who tend to start many projects but struggle to finish.
The five steps of the GTD method
The GTD method is comprised of five steps. If you consistently follow them in the proper order, you’ll realize how simple it is to incorporate the GTD method into your work and life.
Step 1: Capture
The first step in the GTD method is to capture all the information cluttering up your head and place it in a container of some sort, whether it’s a folder on your computer or an actual, physical folder in your filing cabinet. The overall goal of GTD is to stop using your brain as a repository for information and to outsource that role to the container of your choosing. Anything that crosses your mind related to the task you wish to complete must be captured. Organization, at this point, is not important and will be dealt with at a later step in the process. All you have to do to start Getting Things Done is choose a container and start adding to it.
For example, if you are looking to add and staff a new position at your company, you would capture a list of who needs to be involved in the hiring process, any hiring resources or job boards you want to post it to, examples of what the competition offers or is looking for in similar candidates, the information of anyone you’ve networked with who could help in the process, and much more.
Step 2: Clarify
Once you’ve purged your mind of all the information you need to remember for the tasks you wish to complete, it’s time to categorize what you’ve captured. It helps if you can find a way to do this visually, with the simplest example being a to-do list, and a more thorough example being a decision tree. If a task can be done right away and in a few minutes, do it. If you are able to delegate the task to someone else, do it. If it’s referential information, like contact details or a price list, combine it with the relevant task that needs to be completed so you have all the reference information you need readily on-hand. Time-sensitive tasks should be given a deadline and prioritized accordingly, and tasks requiring multiple steps should be separated into their own unique task to be completed (and given their own GTD structure).
Returning to the hiring example, if you have a candidate in mind after conducting interviews, you wouldn’t just note to “call (candidate’s) references.” You should clarify it to “call (candidate’s) references: (reference 1’s name) at (company)” in addition to referential material like their contact info and anything the candidate brought up in the interview that you want to ask them about or clarify.
Step 3: Organize
Clarifying and organizing your tasks can seem like very similar steps but doing them separately will ensure you don’t miss a detail. You can consider this step a more formal action to take after having clarified your tasks. How you end up specifically organizing your tasks largely depends on the means you’re using to GTD, whether it’s a software program, bulletin board or a physical filing system. Much of this step relies on the use of labels. You might be tempted to label everything, but GTD works best when you don’t have too much granularity to disrupt your workflow. There are a few ways you can organize your tasks, the most common being chronologically in the order they need to be completed, or categorically according to their realm of responsibility (finance, staffing, marketing, etc.)
Again, with the hiring example, assuming you’ve decided to hire the candidate in question, you would delineate next steps and involvement from other departments of your company. You could organize action items into HR (for completing paperwork and any onboarding process), Finance/Payroll (to get the candidate entered into your payroll system and ensure their compensation and benefits are properly set up), IT Integration (to get them on your network and any devices set up) and Team/Culture (an introduction to who they will be working with and introducing them into your corporate culture).
Step 4: Engage
This is unofficially the last step in the process: doing what needs to be done. If the previous three steps were followed properly, you should now have an actionable list of things to do at any given moment. You will no longer exhaust yourself trying to think of what to do and when because everything has been categorized and prepared for you to execute. The main payoff of implementing the GTD method is that it eliminates decision fatigue, which means less time spent trying to wrangle your various tasks and more time spent actually getting things done (as the GTD name suggests).
Step 5: Review
This is less of a step to take and more of a continuous best practice. You should dedicate a bit of time on a regular or semi-regular basis to go over everything you’ve compiled and make sure it is still relevant. As you add things to your workflow, other things may need to be updated or removed. If you don’t stay on top of this, you can undo all the work you’ve done. Practice these steps often enough by consistently incorporating them into your workflow, and before long, you’ll be on top of everything in your busy schedule.
